


but i dont mind

by dazaicat



Series: jjbek week 2017 [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5 plus 1 without the plus 1 type of fic, Firsts, Fluff, JJBek Week 2017, M/M, oh look someone convinced me to write the plus one as 'first time they fuck', unless someone convinces me to write the plus one as 'first time they fuck'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:33:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dazaicat/pseuds/dazaicat
Summary: jjbek week day 1, prompt: firstsjj looks good in neon, otabek pines, gross romantic dates happen and they fall in love sometime in between





	1. first meeting

**Author's Note:**

> no beta! we die like,,,whatever it is im dying like. enjoy!
> 
> title from [i.d.g.a.f.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P_EQ6yKeEQg) by breathe carolina

Otabek first meets JJ in the bathroom of a gas station.

He’s washing his hands, looking up at his own reflection in the stained mirror, when he sees the door open as someone comes in.

_Stumbles in,_ perhaps, is more appropriate, because the stranger seems to be drunk as fuck. Otabek snorts in sympathy before he can hold in the sound. The stranger looks up at that and grins. Their eyes catch in the mirror — holding for a long moment — before Otabek redirects his attention to the way he’s scrubbing under his own fingernails. Can never trust gas station bathrooms, after all. Once he’s satisfied with the general cleanliness of his hands he smoothes them down his face and lets the tap run out by itself. He turns to leave once it does.

‘Hey,’ the stranger calls at him from the urinal, and Otabek turns around.

He’s treated to the sight of the stranger zipping up his pants and blinking at him rapidly. Otabek raises his eyebrows.

‘What’s your name?’ The stranger inquires.

The entire encounter feels like it should be strange, but somehow it isn’t, and Otabek is responding before he can think twice about it. ‘Otabek.’

‘Oh. _Otabek._ Nice name,’ the stranger remarks. He tips his head. ‘You’re very attractive, you know that?’

The compliment is delivered simply, like a fact, and is sudden enough to throw Otabek off. Clearing his throat, he tries to come up with an appropriate response. ‘Thank you,’ he settles on, ‘you too.’ The last part is a reflex, the typical way Otabek responds to compliments, but the longer the stares at the stranger the more true it feels.

The stranger grins. ‘I’m JJ,’ he volunteers, and Otabek nods.

‘JJ,’ he repeats.

The silence stretches for a few beats after that. Otabek is staring, stoic, and JJ is grinning in a way that somehow makes Otabek feel like they’re already close. Even when they’re clearly not. That fact must shine through, because the not-so-much-of-a-stranger nods back at him and shuffles around a bit.

Then he makes his way back to the door, and Otabek catches it to hold it open as JJ moves past him into the dark-and-quiet night. He didn’t come alone, apparently — unlike Otabek — because there is a car on the curb and a door opens as JJ moves towards it. Otabek hears ‘ _bro, hurry up, we’re going to be late—’_ as he walks to his own motorcycle.

‘See you around,’ JJ calls as he waves and is pulled backwards into the car. Otabek hears the door shut on the excited voices and music. It peels off into the night, and the surroundings are suddenly quiet and dark again. Quiet enough that Otabek hears the breath he lets out before he puts on his helmet. Quiet enough that the roar of his engine spills out into the night and reverberates in his bones when he straddles his motorcycle. The roar swallows up his thoughts, eventually, as the darkness blurs around him and lights flicker past in long neon smears on the edge of his vision.

He does see JJ around a lot after that.

It’s funny how they never met before, given the overlap between places JJ is at on weekend nights and places Otabek is at on weekend nights, but once they have it seems like JJ is _everywhere._ He’s like the moon, really — once he’s been pointed out to Otabek he sees him anytime he looks up.

He finds out that everyone who’s anyone in the scene knows JJ. It’s a lot less weird then. It’s a lot less weird that JJ _recognizes_ him, pulls him in close with an arm around his shoulders, introduces him to his friends. They don’t even get many chances to talk one-on-one (it seems like _no one_ gets a chance to talk to JJ one-on-one, Otabek’s convinced that the one time he got to meet him alone was some kind of glitch in the universe — statistical outlier — because JJ is never ever not surrounded by people), but somehow Otabek becomes JJ’s ‘ _bro’._

He’s pulled into orbit, somehow, and settles into it with a surprising lack of resistance. JJ’s friends recognize him; he recognizes JJ’s friends. The way he turns up at the same clubs as JJ is treated with the same lack of surprise as the sun setting each night.

It’s some kind of bros-at-first-sight thing, it seems, that day they’ve bumped into each other at the gas station. Otabek can’t say he minds.


	2. first dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is where the M rating comes in: there is nothing explicit, but towards the end they get touchy while dancing.

In all those times they’ve met since then, Otabek has learned quite a few things about JJ. For one: he doesn’t smoke, unlike Otabek. He drinks a lot, also unlike Otabek. He has some kind of weird greeting, where he forms his own initials with his hands and smirks at the recipient — ‘ _it’s JJ style!’ —_ and then laughs, easy and warm and bright.

JJ, he learns, burns with the kind of light Otabek tries to catch between his fingertips anytime he flicks his lighter on. He never manages to. For some reason, he keeps trying again every night.

It’s not the easiest task; where Otabek at best feels like the pale glow at the tip of the stick between his fingers, JJ is more of an actual star. The light just spills out, uncontainable, winking across the dimly lit spaces with their blue-tinged smoke and neon cutting through in beams. Otabek can’t even imagine what else he would look like — _what else_ , if not strobe lights flashing off his cheebones and pale skin drinking in neon to reflect it back in an undimmable, steady glow? — so he doesn’t waste his time imagining.

So many words, just to say that JJ’s personality is naturally magnetic.

Otabek, half helpless moth, half sensible goth, is attracted to him with every piece of metal in his body and then more besides. There’s iron in his blood — maybe that explains the way his skin buzzes when JJ brushes too close on his way to the bar, the way it _sings_ at the press of leather-clad muscle against his back when JJ leans against him momentarily to steady himself.

In a way, this reminds him of something he used to do back when he studied all through the night and zoned out sometime ages past his bedtime to stare at the lightbulb hanging a foot from his face. He’d lift his hand, inching his fingertips closer and closer to the glass, heat intensifying until he came in contact with smooth-hot- _burning._ The light would glow _through_ the red-tinged tips of his fingers, and he’d see how long he could hold them there, how _close,_ before he inevitably got burned and had to blink the light out of his eyes to refocus on the paper.

Touching JJ for the first time feels a lot like that.

The place is so packed it feels a lot like he’s touching _everyone_ at once — insistent hands as much part of the ambience as the pounding music and the pulsing dim lights. There’s a hand on his hip; another brushes itself against the line of his shoulders as someone presumably grasps him for balance, and there’s another set of hands resting on his waist trying to edge up past his leather jacket. He doesn’t know who he’s dancing with. He doesn’t particularly care.

He finds it hard to care about anything when the only force acting on him is the centripetal pull JJwards. _Center-seeking,_ indeed, somehow never getting any closer – and yet, _and yet_ , Otabek has been orbiting JJ for the third hour and he can’t seem to stop. He’s the unfortunate Earth to JJ’s sun; just close enough, just _far_ enough, and even when he’s turned around he can feel the heat on his back.

It takes a single push to send his trajectory crashing gracelessly with JJ’s.

‘ _Where’s my bro,’_ JJ loudly questions no one in particular with a waggle of eyebrows that suggests that he knows exactly what he sounds like (not much like himself) and unapologetically sounds like it anyway. The teasing lilt to his voice is not gravity that Otabek can avoid. The momentum draws him, inevitably, forwards.

Or maybe it’s all the hands; it doesn’t take long before the crowd responds in its own way, like some kind of strange hivemind extension of JJ’s will. Hands gently prod him and tug at his sleeves and voices raise themselves a little to carry over the music to inform JJ that ‘ _there he is, coming over here’,_ and Otabek has very little choice as to whether he’s going to be _here coming over there._

He goes willingly, leather jacket and all.

He’s deposited in front of a grinning JJ like a particularly brooding log washed up on a shore. JJ unglues himself from two girls, unwinding their arms from his torso and wiping lipstick off his neck. His eyes are alight — brighter, even, when they settle on Otabek.

‘Let’s dance,’ JJ says, offhand, and drags Otabek back into the crowd.

The crowd obligingly swallows them both.

And this time, it’s JJ’s hands on him; hot-dry on Otabek’s side through his t-shirt, just above his hipbone, and curled around his shoulder inching up to his neck. JJ presses in close, swaying, all-consuming, eyes almost closed behind fluttering eyelashes. Otabek doesn’t recall when he last took a breath.

The hand on his hip shifts, upwards, and then JJ’s thumb is swiping across his skin like a brand. Otabek is struck with the need to do something _, anything_ , so he settles a hand hesitantly on JJ’s side and brings the other one to JJ’s upper back. It seems to be the right thing to do, because JJ hums and sways in even closer, hot breath on the collarbone opposite the one his palm is covering. Otabek masks a shiver with the motion of turning them both around.

When Otabek’s next step brings his leg between JJ’s, there is a catch in the breath fanning over his neck. JJ thumps his forehead down against Otabek’s shoulder, breath coming harsher, and something in Otabek feels like he’s rapidly approaching terminal velocity in this freefall. His fingers dig into JJ’s leather-covered back on reflex; the hand he has on JJ’s side sneaks its way further back, and lower, until it brushes over denim. He spreads his fingers, palm pushing _down_ as his thigh bears _up._

JJ makes some kind of sound at that, swallowed up by the noise around them. Otabek wonders if this is what meteors feel like, moments before they burn up entirely. -- ‘ _You’re very attractive, you know that?’_ \-- he remembers. With JJ in front of him hanging on for dear life the compliment seems soberingly real.

The music builds up, anticipation climbing higher and higher, and somehow JJ’s fingers are wound loosely in Otabek’s hair and the hand previously on his hip is roaming under his shirt. Otabek is dimly aware that they’re both sweating. The proximity is hot, and the air between them is a sticky kind of humid that plasters Otabek’s shirt to his chest, makes his hair stick to his forehead, makes the slide of JJ’s fingers over his abs slicker.

When the beat drops, the crowd goes wild.


	3. first date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: jj is a Tease, and also mentions his dick but like. very offhand with no details ??

Sometime between all the times he’s met JJ in person, he’s managed to get his number.

At first, it was a joking thing; a parody of everyone who’s ever hit on JJ, with Otabek batting his eyelashes in exaggeration and sidling up close to JJ at the bar. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ he said, and JJ’s lips curved up in amusement that meant he was playing along.

Somehow, somehow, it didn’t feel so much like a game to Otabek.

He still bought the drink. Again, and again, having learned that JJ would drink anything alcoholic someone pushed at him.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, and JJ’s smile slipped into something a little more knowing, something that said _is this what we’re doing, then?_

Then JJ, king of one-upping, leaned close. ‘Why, need something to chant tonight?’

Hot lights, the sudden drop in the music, the crowd around them — so many reasons why Otabek’s cheeks could be flushed. He hopes it’s dark enough that JJ doesn’t see, and knows that JJ’s eyesight is attuned enough to darkness to see anyway.

Otabek refuses to be embarrassed in a game he started himself, so he looks at JJ dead-on. ‘What if I do?’

JJ leans back out of his space and looks at him for a moment, consideringly, before replying. ‘Get me another drink, and I might.’

As if Otabek wasn’t going to get him another drink anyway. He huffs, but does as told, flicking up two fingers and nodding when two glasses are pushed his way.

JJ doesn’t touch his, but he does touch Otabek. The hand is gentle on his shoulder, teasingly so, and JJ’s lips are dangerously close to his ear, close enough that Otabek has to focus hard to make sense of what JJ is saying.

‘Call me Jean,’ he breathes, ‘Jean-Jacques Leroy.’

Otabek can only stare, dumbfounded, as JJ scribbles something on a napkin and pushes it at him before picking up his own glass and vanishing off into the crowd. For a moment, his only thought is _so that’s what JJ stands for,_ and then he’s captivated by the sway of JJ’s hips as he smoothly makes his way across dancing people, and then all he can think of is how utterly _fucked_ he is.

He gets out his phone anyway — Otabek could never resist making his own life more difficult — and copies the digits off the napkin, before sending a text. It’s appropriately simple. ‘want to go somewhere,’ is all he types, no punctuation and no inflection. It’s read immediately.

He can’t see JJ anymore but spares a moment to imagine him fishing out his phone from the pocket of his too-tight jeans. It’s a good mental image. Otabek blinks to refocus on the screen when it starts to swim before his eyes.

> wherw

> **where

> are u going to take me out?;) x

< yes.

It’s all Otabek can think of to say. JJ’s reply is instantaneous.

> my my so foreward!!

> **forward lol

> i accept;)

Then, slightly left-field:

> i dont put out on the first date tho

For some reason, it makes Otabek smile into the rim of his drink.

< tomorrow?

He takes another sip as JJ replies.

> ok

> looking forward to it!!

> :)

< me too.

Otabek hesitates a moment, then, before he powers on.

< jean.

The reply he gets to that is impossibly faster, texts flickering across his screen in a barrage of grey.

> wow thaats so wierd

> people usually only call me that when were fucking lol

> **weird

> otabek

> just call me jj lmao

> wait

> do u want us to be fucking

> otbaek,

> **otabek

Otabek lowkey chokes on his drink and spends the next few seconds coughing.

< oh my god. i’m not answering that

< see you tomorrow, jj.

The next time he gets a reply is when he’s already home, about to get into bed. It’s timestamped 4:03am.

> goodnight :) x

It’s enough to make him smile into his pillow. _Tomorrow_ can’t come fast enough.

 

* * *

He still doesn’t know what it is that JJ — _Jean —_ does for a living, but apparently it makes him unavailable until the late hours of evening.

 

For this reason, their ‘date’ is planned for late hours of evening.

‘how do you want to do this?’ he had texted, and got a much more sober reply from JJ around noon. ‘take me somewhere good’, he’d said, ‘i get off work at 9 today’. In the end, it wasn’t that much difficult to schedule a time and a place for them to meet.

What _was_ difficult, however, was breathing for Otabek when he finally pulled up to the curb near the spot they’ve agreed on and pulled off his helmet to finally look at JJ.

He looked, for lack of a better phrase, _fucking amazing._

Not to say JJ didn’t always look amazing; the floppy undercut and sharp jaw and bright eyes looked great in any lighting, but there was something a little _extra_ to the way he looked under the streetlight on the corner as he leaned against the brick wall of the restaurant. Perhaps, it was the white button up — JJ looked _ridiculously_ good in formal — or maybe the jeans hugging his hips, or even the soft smirk on his face.

In comparison Otabek feels almost inadequate in his usual white t-shirt and leather jacket combo. It seems to be enough for JJ, though, because he pauses to look him up and down twice, before greeting him with a soft smile. ‘You look good.’

‘So do you,’ Otabek responds, equally soft, and watches JJ push off the wall to come to a stop in front of Otabek. JJ raises a hand, smoothes it down Otabek’s front to unzip the jacket that he’d kept zipped up for the ride. Otabek catches his wrist.

‘Let’s go?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ JJ breathes in response. They go.

The restaurant Otabek has picked out was the product of many hours of research, reading reviews and menus and social media pages. The food was promised to be amazing, but the _atmosphere_ was highlighted as the main selling point.

Otabek feels very sold on the atmosphere.

They’re taken to a booth with no questions, a secluded kind of thing trimmed with cherry wood and lit very dimly by warm gold candles flickering in the center of the table. The air smells like incense, intoxicating, and quiet music sets a backdrop for a very lazy, relaxed mood.

‘Romantic,’ JJ remarks, looking at the candles.

‘I try,’ Otabek teases before he can overthink it. JJ looks up at him at that.

The moment is broken by the waitress appearing to take their order, and they slide into their respective seats. Otabek is thus spared from having to explain himself any further. Instead, he focuses on his order, on the rich drawl of JJ’s voice as he tells the waitress what kind of wine they want.

Otabek barely remembers what he’s ordered for himself.

He’s a little preoccupied with this: the soft curve of JJ’s jaw in the gold light, the sheer _novelty_ of seeing JJ in anything other than club-neon or gas-station-fluorescent, the peek of collarbone where JJ’s shirt is unbuttoned a button lower than what is decent, the way JJ’s incisor digs into his bottom lip.

Then he realizes that JJ is biting his lip because he’s busy looking at Otabek looking at him, and suddenly he’s preoccupied with _breathing normally._

They both cough, and avert their eyes. He hears JJ snicker, and looks up again. JJ’s shoulders are shaking a little, and his eyes are laughing at him even as he hides his mouth in the hand he has propped up on the table, and — if JJ keeps looking like that, like he’s happy-drunk on Otabek’s presence alone, then Otabek might not even need the wine after all.

Their food arrives, in Otabek’s humble opinion, way too fast. He’s forced to focus on his steak instead of on JJ as the waitress fills up their glasses and leaves the bottle on the table. He doesn’t even know if he minds; it looks delicious.

JJ ( _king of one-upping_ ) doesn’t let him focus on the steak for long.

Otabek almost chokes on it when he feels the brush of a foot against his calf, and then against his thigh, warm and teasing and very inappropriate for a public place. When he looks up, JJ is very innocently regarding the label on the wine. He meets Otabek’s gaze, sly as anything, before he moves his foot a foot to the _right —_ and Otabek makes a _sound_ into his steak that has JJ looking smug.

‘That good, huh,’ he asks, eyes twinkling, tilting his chin in the direction of Otabek’s plate.

‘Shut up,’ Otabek croaks.

‘Let me have a taste,’ JJ flicks his tongue out, and Otabek can only oblige him as he brings his own fork, a piece of steak speared on it, to JJ’s lips. The moan JJ makes at the taste is _obscene._ Otabek is glad he’d already swallowed. That way, at least, he has nothing to choke on.

By the time the waitress reappears to take their now-empty plates away, JJ is on his second glass of wine. He’s sipping it slowly, seemingly savouring the taste, and he’s looking at Otabek with a mild kind of gaze that makes Otabek think he might want dessert.

‘Would you like dessert, sir?’ The waitress asks.

JJ looks Otabek in the eye when he licks his lips, pointedly, and replies for both of them. ‘Nah, I’m good.’

‘Thank you,’ Otabek adds to be polite, because nothing about the way that JJ licks the rim of his wine glass is _polite._ The waitress nods, a blush high on her cheeks.

Otabek’s throat is a little dry at the insinuation.

It’s followed by a scramble when she brings them the bill. JJ procures a credit card out of seemingly nowhere, pouncing the moment the little clipboard hits the table, but Otabek slides it towards him with his wallet out. JJ’s eyes narrow.

‘Otabek,’ he says dangerously.

‘JJ,’ Otabek replies, mildly, as he holds the clipboard just out of JJ’s reach.

‘Otabek,’ JJ says again in a tone that spells death. ‘Give me. The bill.’

‘Nah.’

‘Do you want to die.’ JJ’s smile is very wide and very terrifying. His eyes glint a little.

‘JJ, you’re scaring the nice lady,’ Otabek says just to see how far he can push, and smiles politely at the waitress as he hands her the bill with his card and absolutely does _not_ enjoy the indignant sound JJ makes.

‘I can’t believe you.’ JJ says, incredulous and somewhat betrayed, as they leave the restaurant. ‘I _cannot_ believe you.’

‘Mmm,’ Otabek hums.

JJ makes a strangled, frustrated sound, and he looks so _adorable_ that Otabek can’t help but smile at him.

‘It was a date,’ Otabek tells him by way of explanation. Then, he wonders if he is being presumptious, and his cheer drains away a little. ‘Was it a date?’

JJ pouts for a second more before he replies.

‘It was,’ he concedes. ‘Even if you’re kind of a dick.’

Otabek is all giddy relief at that. They’re at the corner, already, the same one Otabek has parked his motorcycle, and suddenly he’s hit with the fact that _this is it._

He’s actually kind of not ready to end it there. He clears his thoat.

‘Do you,’ he says, slowly, ‘maybe want to go somewhere else?’

JJ looks at him, bright and — secretly _pleased? —_ before he ducks under his floppy fringe with a smile. ‘Maaaybe,’ he teases. ‘Where do you want to take me?’

Looking at him, happy and relaxed, cheeks a little pink from the two glasses he’s had, Otabek’s first thought is — _everywhere. I’d take you everywhere._

He replies with a more realistic ‘the pier. Let’s go see the pier.’

‘The pier,’ JJ hums, as if trying to see how the words taste. ‘Okay. Take me to the pier, Otabek.’

Otabek glances at his motorcycle.

‘I hope you’re not planning to take me on that thing,’ JJ says. ‘Didn’t think drunk driving was a kink of yours.’

‘You don’t know my kinks,’ Otabek replies, absentmindedly, as he brings up Google Maps on his phone.

When he looks up at JJ, JJ looks half scandalized and half amused. ‘So tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘About your kinks.’

Otabek blushes violently all of a sudden at the way JJ says that. He keeps his eyes firmly on the route that Google Maps suggests.

‘700 meters from here,’ he says instead. ‘You think we can walk that?’

‘You can carry me if my legs give out,’ JJ snarks. ‘Since you’re my knight in shining armor and all.’

Otabek pretends to consider it.

‘No. You’re heavy,’ he says, and turns his back on JJ’s indignant gasp to begin walking.

‘I cannot _believe_ you’d let me _die_ in some unknown street because you think I’m too fat to carry. Otabek. Is this how you treat all your dates?’

Otabek keeps walking and ignores JJ’s whining. JJ catches up soon enough; throws an arm around Otabek’s shoulders and pokes at his cheek where Otabek is trying to hide a smile.

‘You’re not fat,’ Otabek says. ‘Just muscley. Heavy.’

JJ snorts into his neck. ‘Says Mr. Built Like A Truck.’

‘If I was built like a truck,’ Otabek argues, ‘then I could lift you with my muscles.’

JJ jerks them both to a stop.

‘Carry me,’ he declares, dramatically.

‘No.’ Otabek widens his eyes at him.

‘ _Carry me,’_ JJ insists.

‘ _No,‘_ Otabek insists harder.

‘Otabek,’ JJ says, and his eyes are narrowed in the same way he glared at Otabek across the table at the restaurant. His voice is low, deliberate, and somewhat of a turn-on. ‘If you want to have _any chance at all_ at this dick, you will _shut up_ and _carry me.‘_

‘Are you serious.’

‘Otabek.’

Otabek considers a world in which he has _no chance at all_ at that dick.

Then, he turns around and crouches a little, sighing.

JJ pretends to swoon for a moment before he climbs on. He pats Otabek’s cheek, lips close to his ear. ‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘I knew that would tempt you.’

Otabek thinks about his entire life and the weight of his combined mistakes for every one of the 700 meters he carries JJ to the pier.

When they finally reach there, JJ seems to be possessed by a spirit of someone _chivalrous as fuck_ ; he insists on buying two sticks of ice cream, gathers up both of their wrappers, and walks a whole 50 meters to the bin to throw them away.

When he joins Otabek on the walkway to lean against the railing, he looks oddly thoughtful. It smells like the sea, dark, rushing all around them, breaking against the rocks below in a heavy and constant rhythm. The only light comes from the lamps lining the railing, and from the stars twinkling above, as well as the ships dotting the horizon.

Under the orange light of the lamp right above them, JJ’s eyelashes cast shadows long enough to span his cheekbones. Otabek’s eyes are drawn to the way JJ licks melted ice cream off his wrist, catching the droplet before it runs down his arm. JJ doesn’t look at him; he’s too transfixed by the dark expanse before them.

Otabek briefly entertains the thought of staying in that particular moment forever.

JJ ruins that particular illusion very fast by pulling out his phone to check the time.

‘Otabek,’ he says, as he licks the ice cream stick clean. ‘It’s almost midnight.’

‘Mm,’ Otabek hums, trying his best to ignore the way something in his chest sinks a little at that. ‘Want to head back?’ he says instead, turning to look at JJ properly.

JJ yawns at him in reply.

Otabek is so, so fond. JJ blinks at him, and then stretches a hand out to pull Otabek in closer by the collar of his jacket. For a minute, they’re staring at each other, unguarded and anticipatory, the sea rushing under their feet and the stars above them.

JJ leans in first.

His breath is ghosting over Otabek’s cheek, maddening-hot, flickering down to his jaw. His voice, when it comes, is pitched quiet and velvet-soft. ‘I want to do this again,’ JJ murmurs into the shell of Otabek’s ear. ‘Tell me we’re doing this again’.

JJ doesn’t kiss him; he doesn’t have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so if otabek did indeed manage to carry jj with his muscles,,,does this mean otabek is, indeed, built like a truck, by his own admission?


	4. first kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dey kis. mwah mwah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h8rs: otabek altin is not a meme 1.1.!!!  
> me: oTaBeK aLtIn Is NoT a MeMe !.1.!!

That one date seems to break some kind of invisible barrier, some kind of line that separated _club JJ_ and _Otabek’s JJ._

When Otabek first sees him during the daytime, it’s not their first date; but it’s his first time seeing JJ in _sunlight,_ playing across his hair, setting his eyes on fire.

Just Otabek’s luck that the fucker would look breathtaking in literally every kind of light.

It was JJ’s proposal they meet in a cafe near where he works. He’d texted with too many emojis, nervous hope in every word, and Otabek accepted without thinking. Clearly, accepting things without thinking when it comes to JJ is a trend, but also very stupid of Otabek, given how he is _literally dying._

JJ looks, disgustingly, unfairly, _ridiculously_ beautiful in the soft midday rays filtering through the cafe window. Only a decade of experience in ordering coffee allows Otabek to function; most of his brain cells are diverted to the incredibly important task of figuring out how JJ manages to look more radiant than the sun itself. What the fuck, even.

He thinks JJ has noticed Otabek’s fish-like gaping at some point, actually, because JJ looks like he’s about to start laughing any minute. Mercifully, he does not. Instead, he starts talking about his life, does _things_ to Otabek’s poor gay heart when he realizes that he’s being let into something very private and very personal and very _JJ._

There’s something about daylight, apparently, that makes JJ less of an enigma and more of an open, warm person who owns dogs and takes pictures of the view outside his office window and _tells Otabek about these things._

Tells Otabek these things like it’s nothing, like he’s talking about the weather, instead of divulging precious information about himself.

Daytime JJ is another dimension, another whole field to explore, and Otabek literally does not know how on earth he can be possibly _more_ in love with someone, but somehow he manages to do just that. It’s like he’s dug a hole down through the entire diameter of the Earth and is now bravely digging into outer space, leaving molten rock and humanity behind to chase the stars.

A very particular star, to be more exact.

A very particular star that has cleared its throat three times already and is smirking at him in amusement as he attempts to recall where the conversation was before he spaced out (hah) thinking about how much he adores stars in general, and JJ above all.

He blinks very rapidly to try and cover up that fact.

JJ is most definitely laughing at him now. He pokes Otabek’s shin under the table with his toes and crinkles his eyes.

‘Thinking about something?’ He asks. ‘Some _one?’_ he says, and oh, he’s _totally_ making fun of Otabek.

‘Yeah,’ Otabek says. Waits.

‘Oh?’ JJ bites. ‘Tell me about them?’

‘You wouldn’t want to hear it, really, he’s kind of an ass.’

‘My, Otabek, thinking about yourself again? You’re so vain,’ JJ sighs in mock disappointment.

‘mY, oTaBeK, tHiNkInG aBoUt yOuRsElF aGaiN? yOu’Re So VaIn,’ Otabek mocks into his coffee for lack of a better comeback.

JJ chokes a little on his bite of muffin, staring at Otabek in unguarded delight.

‘Otabek,’ he says, ‘did you just _meme?’_

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ says Otabek, with infinite dignity.

‘You _totally just memed_!’ JJ squeals.

Otabek very pointedly bites into his own muffin and ignores him.

‘You. _Memed!’_ JJ repeats, stabbing his toes into Otabek’s shin for emphasis. ‘I cannot believe my boyfriend is a walking meme. Wow.’

 _Boyfriend,_ he says.

‘ksdjgfhjgh,’ Otabek says, as he tries to cough his muffin out of his windpipe.

‘Otabek. Are you dying.’ JJ’s eyes are appropriately wide and his hands are hovering off the table as if he’s about to leap over it and do something helpful, like thump Otabek very hard on the back.

‘No,’ Otabek says eventually, a little hoarse from coughing.

‘Was it something I said? That you’re a meme? — _Oh.’_ JJ’s eyes are even wider. ‘It’s the boyfriend thing, isn’t it. You’re choking because I called you my boyfriend.’

Otabek’s entire face has colored to match the raspberries in JJ’s muffin.

‘ _Oh god.’_ JJ sounds horrified. ‘You don’t like it. I fucked up. Oh god, I fucked up.’

‘NO,’ Otabek rushes to correct. His voice probably comes out a little too harsh. ‘No,’ he repeats, more quietly. ‘I liked it.’

JJ stares at him, dubious.

‘I really liked it,’ Otabek mumbles, flustered.

‘Boyfriend.’

‘Oh god. Stop.’

‘ _Boyfriend.’_

‘Now you’re just making fun of me.’

‘Otabek Altin, my _boyfriend.’_

‘I am leaving right now, immediately.’

‘Aww, would you leave your _boyfriend_ all alone in a cafe on your date?’

‘Literally yes,’ Otabek says, and stands.

‘You don’t mean that,’ JJ simpers and flutters his eyelashes at him.

Otabek leans forward to put his face very close to JJ’s. ‘Yes,’ he says, enunciating every word. ‘I do. I would totally leave my _boyfriend,’_ he pauses there, watching the stunned look on JJ’s face with narrowed eyes, ‘because he is being _obnoxious_ in this cafe, on our _date.‘_

After that declaration, JJ is silent for a moment. He looks, in one word, _shook._

Then he whispers. ‘Holy shit.’

Then, a little louder. ‘I can leave with you, though, right? I’m done with my muffin.’

Otabek blinks. ‘Yeah. I’ll go pay?’

‘Ok,’ JJ says. His cheeks are very pink. ‘ _Boyfriend’._

 _‘Obnoxious,’_ Otabek mutters under his breath as he makes his way to the counter with his wallet. He’s smiling, though.

The street outside the cafe is very warm, and very sunlit. JJ pauses to pull out his phone to take a picture of the sun beams caught in the leaves of a very green tree, framed against the wispy clouds of the sky. Incidentally, the sky is very fucking blue.

Otabek doesn’t know where to go from here, so once JJ finally gets his perfect shot, they just stand there.

Time stretches on, for a bit, ahead of them. JJ is looking at Otabek like he’s waiting for something. Otabek wonders what the hell he’s waiting for.

Then JJ nods, quick and decisive, and kisses Otabek in the middle of the street.

It’s a firm press of lips, dry and smooth, right on Otabek’s own. He makes some kind of surprised sound, some kind of _I can’t believe this is happening right now but I’ve been waiting for it so long and I’ve imagined it countless times and it was never like this but this is also impossibly better than anything I could have imagined,_ and when his lips part JJ takes it as his cue to press in closer and _taste._

JJ tastes like the raspberry muffin he’s ordered at the cafe. He also tastes like Otabek thinks a meteor might taste like, or a star, or the music right before the beat drops. Under all that, he just tastes like a _complete dork._

JJ pulls away with a final peck. His eyes are shining.

‘I’ve been waiting to do that,’ he says, and it’s the most cliche line ever but it does _things_ to Otabek’s heart.

‘Was it good?’ he blurts out. He’s still a little dazed from the kiss.

‘You’re asking me,’ JJ laughs. ‘Yes, dumbass. It was good.’

‘Want to do it again?’ Otabek says, when he recovers a little from the idea of JJ thinking that _their kiss was good._

‘Well, if you _ask nicely,’_ JJ says against his lips. ‘Maybe.’

They do it again. And again.


	5. first 'i love u'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dey confes. luv luv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: jj asks 4 the D. he's also in the hospital, but nth graphic is described ?? no rly jj mentions his dick and otabek mentions broken limbs

Their relationship thrives on a solid foundation of similarities. They’re both, equally, likely to be found somewhere crowded and neon and loud past 10pm on a weekend; they both, unfailingly, sport an undercut and multiple piercings; they both, without a doubt, incredibly gone on each other.

They do say, though, that _opposites attract,_ so the healthy sprinkle of mirror-image differences probably spices up the otherwise very healthy salad that is their relationship. There’s the 10cm JJ has on Otabek; 10cm that Otabek determinedly ignores anytime he drags JJ down for a kiss. There’s also the fact that when you get to know him, JJ is a _complete whiny diva,_ and Otabek literally does not have any room to be a whiny baby because JJ takes up _all of it_ and then some.

There’s also this: unlike JJ, who has wrapped himself in layers upon layers of nicknames like spare labels to shed at will, Otabek never really felt the same itching need to be something else.

Unlike JJ, whom Otabek can call _Jean_ when he’s aiming for particularly vulnerable spots, emotionally, Otabek doesn’t have much to his name besides his name itself. Most of the time, as a result, JJ doesn’t call him anything at all.

Well, there are some things: he calls Otabek _bro,_ ironically, _dude,_ even more ironically, and _Otabek,_ when he’s lit by the harsh buzzing fluorescent hospital lights.

 _Jean,_ Otabek says to the hand gripped firmly between his own. _Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you dare do this to me right now._

JJ’s response is a weak laugh that breaks midway into a weak cough, and Otabek’s fingers clench with the conflicting desire to push him into the starch-white hospital sheets to tell him to _shut up and save his breath,_ or to pull him in close and possibly never let go.

 _I think you care a lot, Otabek,_ JJ’s smile says for him.

 _Of course I fucking do, idiot,_ says the hard and tense line of Otabek’s jaw.

‘I love you,’ says JJ finally. ‘I think I really do.’ He looks as if his own admission was what got him dazed and blinking up at Otabek in some kind of silent wonder, and not blood loss.

‘Shut up. You idiot. You fucking idiot.’ Otabek’s voice comes out sharp, exasperated, like the glaring lights overhead. ‘I love you too. Shut up.’

‘Oh god, I love you _so much_ ,’ he follows up in a hoarse whisper that cracks towards the end, eyes closed and JJ’s limp hand pressed to the space between his eyebrows with both of his own.

When Otabek finally collects himself, synching breaths to the slow beep of the heart rate monitors, he presses his lips against JJ’s knuckles and takes in a deep breath.

‘You are never,’ he says, heavy intent in every single word, ‘ _ever,_ stepping foot near a motorcycle alone ever again. Jean. I will break both your legs myself.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ JJ says, light.

Otabek sighs against JJ’s palm.

‘No,’ he admits, finally. ‘I can’t tell you what to do. But please, J, don’t ever scare me like that again.’

JJ brushes the knuckles of his hand over Otabek’s cheek, over his miserable expression.

‘Okay,’ he whispers, ‘okay.’

Then JJ’s contrite expression turns devious. ‘But when I finally get out of this cast, I want you to give me the D.’

Otabek stares at him for a very long, very stunned moment.

‘How many drugs are you on?’

JJ shrugs. ‘Enough, probably. But I’ve wanted you since months before that, so I don’t think it really matters.’

‘Jean. You have just broken several limbs, lost enough blood to fund an entire donation drive, and the thing you choose to think about is my dick? I don’t know if I should be flattered or disturbed.’

‘Depends,’ JJ says, matching Otabek’s serious tone. ‘Is your dick flattering or disturbing?’

‘I can’t believe you,’ Otabek mumbles.

‘I can’t believe you love me,’ Jean fires back, and then pauses as if he doesn’t realize it came out _that way._

‘Too bad,’ Otabek says, measured. ‘Because I do. Get used to it.’

‘You love me,’ JJ repeats, giddy. ‘You love me.’

‘Yeah, genius, glad to see the crash didn’t affect your listening comprehension skills.’

‘You _looooove_ me. Wow.’ Then, JJ’s expression turns suddenly serious. He’s biting on his lip, even, as he looks at Otabek all careful-like. ‘You’ll tell me that again when I’m not drugged up to my gills, right?’

Otabek slides their fingers together, and nods. ‘I will. And every day, for the rest of our lives.’

 _For the rest of our lives,_ JJ mouths.

 _For the rest of our lives,_ Otabek nods, a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u 4 reading. theyre gay. for each other. thanks.  
> (oho since this is 5 things should i do a +1 wit the first time they DO IT ?? no rly tho)


	6. in fact i like it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me: say 'please write a +1 in which they fuck for the first time'  
> u: wha-  
> me: say no more :)
> 
> except!! have some extra insecurity on otabek's end, mentions of past yurabek and overall lots of angsting about feelings!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hello i dont know how 2 porn so pls hv mercy

Had Otabek known that JJ would spend the entire week after getting discharged from the hospital _whining_ , he might have -- well, there's nothing he could have done about it short of leaving JJ at the hospital for another week. And, as delicately as Yura put it, he _can't spend a single day without messaging the asshole, Jesus, Otabek, you're so whipped it's not even funny_. If anyone knows about Otabek being whipped, he thinks, it's Yura, but that way lie bitter memories he'd rather not dig up. Their delicate equilibrium where Yura calls him every Friday to bitch about everything under the sun in sarcastic rapid-fire Russian is just that -- delicate -- and Otabek doesn’t want to throw rocks at the boat he disembarked a mere year ago. 

Regardless: he's stuck with JJ pouting his way through having to keep his cast on, having to drink the gross painkillers, and having to depend on Otabek for everything. That last thing, he suspects JJ doesn't mind at all. 

He probably does the _opposite_ of minding, actually. Otabek is a perceptive man, and not even JJ's signature you'll-need-sunglasses-for-this grin can blind him to the fact that he maybe, just maybe, is being exploited a little. 

Proof? JJ uses every single opportunity to be _insufferable_. He makes Otabek feed him, despite having a perfectly functional left arm (Otabek knows he's ambidextrous, he can stop fronting). That would be tolerable on its own -- if JJ didn't pair the experience with long looks through his eyelashes that screamed _I'd rather you were feeding me something else_. Otabek has made the mistake of picking up a bit of pancake with his fingers once, and JJ choking on it after seeing Otabek's face in response to JJ _licking the maple sauce off his fingers_ was only barely enough to salvage his pride. 

JJ doesn't stop there. He demands to be carried from the bed to the couch and takes the opportunity to slap Otabek's ass on the way (the first time, Otabek almost dropped him). He demands cuddles and massages which Otabek obliges, gladly even -- no matter how much exaggeratedly pouty he gets in private, JJ knows that in all seriousness Otabek loves showering him with affection. ( _Whipped_ , Yura's voice rings in his ears.) 

He does shove a pillow in JJ's face when he remarks on how he can't jerk off as efficiently with his left hand, but that's _deserved_. 

It's almost strange: it's barely been six months since they first met and already Otabek knows JJ's apartment better than his own. He's gone on coffee runs enough that the lady next door recognizes him, knows where JJ's favourite mug is, knows that if he sets a full mug next to JJ he'll drink it on autopilot but if he adds in anything edible he'll take his eyes off his laptop screen and smile at Otabek. The first time that happened his heart skipped a beat -- watching JJ's serious, quiet expression as he made up for work missed over his hospital stay soften into something open and warm and _adoring_ was an experience that Otabek thinks may have added a decade to his lifespan. 

Otabek would frankly stay for those moments indefinitely, live solely between the moments between JJ nodding off -- neck bent at a weird angle until Otabek shifts him to lie more comfortably across his lap -- on Otabek after a particularly long working session, and waking up to JJ burying his cold nose in Otabek's neck to mutter something about waffles. He really would; however, his job can only wait so long. 

His less-strict _second job_ can also only wait so long, because he hasn't updated his YouTube channel in two weeks and consistency is key to keeping an audience captivated. When JJ finds out Otabek is behind one of the biggest DJ channels that he follows he _shrieks_ and almost falls off the couch, but Otabek pointedly looks away from JJ's gaping fish imitation when he adds the dedications to the video he's finished editing. He's started working on the track not long after their first dance; he wonders if JJ can tell it's about him from the lyricless melody alone. 

Something tells him he can. JJ listens to the track with a reverence he usually only saves for his morning caffeine fix and cats he meets on the street, Otabek's good headphones fitted snug over his ears. He's very quiet and Otabek's palms are a little sweaty trying to guess at what it means that JJ is biting on his lower lip -- then JJ looks up as the track fades out (Otabek knows every beat by heart) and stares at Otabek, wide-eyed. Their noses squish together gracelessly when JJ winds a hand in Otabek's shirt and _pulls_ , laptop caught awkwardly between them and Otabek's lip caught not-so-awkwardly between JJ's teeth. 

And this: _this_ happens often. Otabek in JJ's lap, hovering over him in the dark; JJ's lips warm and wet against his own before he even opens his eyes in the morning. He's had JJ's head thrown back on his shoulder in the shower as he trailed soapy fingers down the hard lines of his body and he's had JJ's harsh breaths as he pressed him into the door to their bedroom. The tension sometimes feels like a whole third presence in the apartment -- maybe JJ should charge it rent -- but it only takes one look at JJ's cast to make Otabek sigh and draw back. 

It frustrates JJ to no end, he knows. It frustrates him too. 

xxxxxx

It's not that they're not interested in each other. 

It's that -- there was never time, or if there was it was the _wrong_ kind of time, or the time was right but they weren't -- _ready_ , or something. JJ, he learns, for all his party animal image, is incredibly selective when it comes to his partners. Otabek understands and relates; his own epic romance took five years to kick off and lasted a mere two after it finally started. 

He wonders if it's a testament to their relationship being very right or very wrong that he and JJ are taking it at the pace of a glacier melting. 

Maybe it's that so much of it went unspoken, for so long. They didn't really discuss what they are; didn't put a name to it, didn't qualify feelings or attach a label to their push-and-pull thing. There's no complacency there, Otabek thinks. No promises to rely on -- just cues, an overall very polite dance Otabek hopes they're doing to the same song. 

Or maybe he's too cynical -- but surely a muttered _let's do this again_ at the end of one good date wouldn't stop JJ from up and leaving if he wanted to? Surely Otabek could walk away without losing too much of himself? 

But then: _boyfriend_ , JJ says. _Mine_ , JJ says. How can he argue with that? 

Then, further: _I love you_ , JJ says, in a hospital bed. He says that, and Otabek means it with every cell in his body when he says it back, and yet he doesn't know how to approach topics like _let's move in together I practically live here anyway and I could help with rent_ or _do you think I could bring you round to see my parents sometime_ without feeling like maybe he's moving a little fast for someone JJ met in a gas station bathroom -- imposing, somehow. 

After all, JJ talked to him first and complimented him first and gave him his name and number first and called him _boyfriend_ first and kissed him first and -- who is Otabek to suspect JJ would hold back on making it clear, if he wants something? 

( _For the rest of our lives_ , Otabek declared, but he wonders how long that is.) 

He tries not to think about it, and instead focuses on the feel of JJ's hair between his fingers and the steady rise-and-fall of his chest as he nods off yet again on top of Otabek. _Ask him_ , his conscience whispers. He tells it to be quiet; JJ is asleep. 

xxxxxx

_You wouldn't hesitate to ask if it was Yura_ , his traitor conscience whispers instead when JJ stirs. That thought is accompanied by guilt: it isn't fair to JJ or to Yura to compare the two of them. _Then what is making you wait?_ a part of him demands to know. Looking down at JJ blinking sleep out of his eyes as he stifles a yawn, he doesn't know the answer, but the question tastes vaguely of dread. 

'Mmrng,' JJ mutters directly into Otabek's stomach. 

'Evening, actually,' Otabek says, voice drenched in fondness much like JJ drenches his pancakes in too-sweet maple syrup. 

'Mmf,' JJ agrees. He pulls his face out of the folds of Otabeks sweatshirt just long enough to blink up at him and smile. Otabek brushes his bangs out of his eyes on reflex. Sometimes, he thinks he's already conditioned to see that smile and immediately feel like someone punched him in the gut (gently, adoringly, with love). 'Gues' what.' 

'What?' 

'Takin' the cast off t'mrr'w,' JJ says, with a smile rapidly blooming into a grin. He even throws in an eyebrow waggle. 

'Mhm. And?' Otabek aims for teasing, but he can't help the note of wariness that creeps into his mood. 

In lieu of answering, JJ drops his head back down with his face dangerously close to Otabek's crotch and makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like ' _nom_ '. 

'And I can finally properly meet Otabek Junior,' he elaborates, a little muffled. 

'You've met,' says Otabek, amused. He winds a hand in JJ's hair to subtly pull him to safer places but JJ makes a whiny noise and burrows in deeper. 

'Not properly. I need proper introductions, Otabek. My ass is not acquainted.' 

Otabek is about to fire back an appropriately teasing one-liner, but then his traitor of an imagination decodes that statement in detail for him. His dick, JJ's ass, formal introductions. The thought makes him pause long enough that the hand in JJ's hair freezes, gripping a little too tight, and the resulting awkward pause is a little too awkward and cold for him to save. 

JJ tenses, too, and removes his head from Otabek's crotch. Otabek can see the smile cooling on his face as JJ sits up, expression gently confused. 

'Do you -- not want that?' 

'I--' Otabek says, unable to think of something to continue thought with. The silence drags on. 

'Shit, I'm sorry, Otabek, I assumed--' 

'No, no, it's just that I--' 

'Just what?' JJ's tone is so very gentle, but Otabek can see the insecurity lurking behind his eyes. He hates it. 

'Do you want me to move in with you.' comes out instead, and Otabek mentally cringes as JJ blinks in confusion. 

'Well, yes, why -- do you want to?' Otabek's cheeks are steadily getting redder under JJ's questioning gaze. 

'Yeah. Can I?' His voice is steady, at least. Bonus points for stoicism. 

'Of course! We can arrange something in the morning, but --' His voice trails off, eyes still intent on Otabek. 'What about the other thing?' 

'Sex?' 

'Yeah. I assumed we both wanted to, you know, but you never explicitly said anything, and I don't want to ask for anything you might not want--' 

Otabek brings a hand up to cup JJ's face on instinct. JJ falls silent. 

'This might sound a little -- foolish,' he says slowly, 'but a part of me was worried this is just some prolonged kind of hook-up to you.' 

He thinks (hopes) that JJ's frown at that point is more confusion than offense. He continues, to try and salvage the conversation. 

'I'm not saying I think it means nothing to you. But I never know, you know? What we are. If you meant it. Shit, I don't know how to say this, you scared me so fucking much with that accident and I wonder, what are we _doing_ , why am I _here_ \--' His voice cuts off there, all possible continuations suddenly leaving him stranded with a growing sense of awkward horror. 

After a few moments of him not speaking, JJ does. His words are firm, eyes serious and soft. 

'You're here, I hope, because you want to be? Because I want you to be. What we're doing -- hell, Otabek, I don't know if there's an end destination, but I really like this, you know?--' he gestures at the two of them with a quick shake of his head--'And I'd really like to continue whatever it is. I meant it when I said I loved you.' 

'I know. Me too,' Otabek sighs, forehead coming to thump against JJ's. It feels strange, how _relieved_ he feels to hear those things out loud, given how he should already know them. He doesn't doubt JJ, ever, but the reassurance lights a warm glow somewhere under his ribs. 

'We don't have to have sex.' 

'I know. I want to, though,' he says to JJ's nose. Then, because the atmosphere needs a little more levity, he adds: 'Though I'd rather have _my_ ass meet JJ Jr.' 

JJ takes in a sharp breath somewhere around Otabek's ear, but when he looks up, he's smiling. 

'That can be arranged,' he says with a smirk. 'Though it's JJ _senior_ to you.' 

'I don't know, height isn't always indicative...' 

'You can't be seriously implying my dick isn't big enough, Otabek.' 

Otabek hides his grin and muffles JJ's indignation when he tilts his chin up. 'Eh, I'll take it.' 

xxxxxx

He thinks about everything and nothing on the way to the hospital; absentmindedly checks that he's brought his wallet and ID even as the bulk of his attention is caught by the way JJ leans against the car window to people-watch. 

Their wallets match. How could Otabek have ever doubted this? He feels guilty, almost. Like he's asking for extra reassurance on top of what JJ has already so generously given -- and Otabek isn't _clingy_ , doesn't think he is, but maybe Yura has changed him somehow in that regard. 

Maybe one and a half of two years of thinking everything is perfect has made him too afraid to think that he found love after six months. He's been left once; what's to say JJ wouldn't look at him one day and say _yeah, you know, I think we're better off as friends?_

All JJ can reassure him of is that he loves him in the now, but neither he nor JJ have any control over what happens in the future. 

Otabek closes his eyes for a moment when they arrive to try and will the thoughts away. This is a good, happy moment, and he will not ruin it by being insecure. JJ leans into him for a moment once they step out of the car -- a warm, solid weight -- and it does miracles to anchor Otabek in the present. 

'Let's go, _boyfriend_ ,' he says. 

JJ huffs and takes his hand with his uninjured left one. 'It's not obnoxious when you say it. _Husband_ , maybe, that has a ring to it -- hah, a _ring_ to it--' 

Otabek bumps their shoulders together (more like shoulder to upper arm, but Otabek firmly refuses to mind their height difference) -- 'Stop growing,' he says, seemingly left-field, which just launches another barrange of teasing from JJ. 

xxxxxx

They leave cast-free and a handful of cherry lollipops richer. It's a very good trade; Otabek is mildly impressed. Would be more impressed, if JJ didn't obnoxiously crush the lollipops between his teeth one by one, methodically, like some kind of demonic nutcracker. 

He gives JJ a sidelong _look_ so maybe he would get a hint, but JJ just waggles his eyebrows and sticks out his cherry-red tongue at him to tease. 'Don't be jealous. Wanna taste?' 

Otabek thinks it over, then leans in to chase the remaining flavour. JJ's mildly surprised squawk is quickly muffled, and the cherry is surprisingly sourer than Otabek expected, but it's -- good. Kissing JJ is always good. 

'Good?' JJ asks. Otabek hums in assent. 

'This gives me an idea, actually,' he says, aiming for casual. JJ raises his eyebrows. 

'Oh?' 

'Cherry flavoured lube.' 

The next 3 seconds are _glorious_ as the remainder of JJ's lollipop goes down the wrong pipe and sends him into a violent coughing fit. 

He tries to keep a poker face, but pats JJ's back in sympathy as he gasps. 

'I'm -- Shit, it's just so funny, you always have those stoic eyebrows -- and then you say things like that -- Jesus, Otabek -- cherry flavoured, huh?' The last part is a teasing lilt, mostly, as JJ regains control of his breathing. 

'You seem to like the flavour,' Otabek shrugs. 

'Hey! You telling me I'll be doing all the lube-tasting around here? Because--' 

'I like it too.' 

'Oh. _Oh_. Turn left here, there's a supermarket somewhere along -- yeah. You coming?' 

'Hopefully,' Otabek snorts, and JJ just shakes his head as he gets out of the car. 

JJ makes them buy five bottles, in the end. Three water-based, one unflavoured, one warming -- the cashier goes a little wide-eyed when JJ attempts to buy out the condoms aisle and asks for _extra large_ , but Otabek politely elbows him out of the way with ' _I thought we planned on_ you _topping, not me_ '. 

_So adult_ , Otabek thinks, and then snorts. Planning it so meticulously. JJ's excitement grows with every moment they spend in the car, and he even tries to crack open the cherry flavoured lube to taste -- Otabek has to talk him out of that one purely because he doesn't want to think about the logistics of cleaning out lube from car seats. 

By the time they arrive JJ seems to be vibrating in his seat, ready to pounce, and when Otabek playfully slaps his hand away he _whines_. He'd tease, but somehow he's coming to realize that he's just as wanting, just as ready as JJ is. It's an encouraging realization. 

When they make it past the door JJ gracelessly kicks his shoes off, winds his fingers in Otabek's hair, then rolls his eyes and unwinds himself to go line up his shoes neatly. Otabek eyes the plastic bag with the lube and the kitchen table and decides he doesn't actually want to walk that far. 

Lube doesn't belong in the kitchen, anyway. 

It takes him about as long to formulate that thought as it takes for him to be pressed against the door, JJ crowding him in and sliding long ( _strong_ ) fingers to rest around Otabek's hips, thumbs in the hollows of his hipbones. 'Where were we,' JJ says, voice already a low murmur, and Otabek shivers a little and tips his head back so JJ can have more space to live out his dreams of being a TV-worthy vampire. 

Or at least that's what he expects; in reality, JJ goes surprisingly gentle, starting with a gentle tug on Otabek's earlobe to place soft kisses under his ear and along his throat. 

'You smell,' JJ mutters into his neck, 'very good. Like maple. Kind of wanna eat you.' 

'Sure,' Otabek says. It sounds the tiniest bit like a groan. 'But kiss me first.' 

JJ laughs a little, and it's a much deeper and more breathless sound -- _already?_ \-- but Otabek feels the same and relates fully. It's been _so long_. 'If you insist,' JJ says, and Otabek bites down extra hard on that smug smirk just for that. 

'Feisty, feisty,' JJ says into his mouth, and Otabek would so turn him around -- but there's an unspoken agreement of sorts, in which his ass is the host to some very welcome guests, so he decides that teaching JJ how to behave can wait another day. 

Yura loved bottoming too much -- this, to Otabek, is a rare treat, and one he intends to savour. 

So he goes pliant when JJ pushes; stops thinking of Yura, and starts thinking about the little noises of approval JJ makes as he begins nipping at his throat in earnest. JJ brings up one hand to tangle it in Otabek's hair and pull to bring his chin up higher -- Otabek likes that. Likes JJ's hands all possessive and warm and solid on him. That thought, the _possessiveness_ , drags a little sound out of his throat that JJ immediately looks up at and zeroes in on. 

His eyes are space, if space was molten-hot instead of cold. 

Otabek vaguely wonders when JJ has gotten a hand up his shirt to trace aimless circles across his skin. _How long has it been?_ He has to focus. It's just so hard to -- hah, _hard_ \-- Otabek is no virgin but JJ's presence is more potent of a distraction than usual. His hands are at his sides pressed into the wood but then JJ pulls away for a second and Otabek _needs_ him closer, cups his jaw and drags him in by the back of his neck. 

JJ laughs a little at that, but Otabek refuses to be ashamed. Not when he can get physical confirmation that JJ needs it too just by shifting his thigh 10 centimeters to the left. He does just that to feel JJ's breath stutter; it's a reminder of their first dance all over again, and that memory adds another layer of _want._

It also adds a couple degrees to the air between them, Otabek thinks, because under normal conditions he doesn't usually melt into walls. Seriously; if JJ continues in that vein he thinks he might have to be scraped off the floor. As it is, his slouchy half-melted posture only makes it easier for JJ to loom over him and fill his entire field of vision with dark eyes and too-bright teeth. They glint when JJ pulls back, and Otabek wishes his attention could stop fixating on the tiny details like how _sharp_ JJ's incisors are. 

Or how his collarbones shimmer lightly in the strained heat, or how his hips feel custom-molded to Otabek's palms, or how JJ's shirt is beginning to stick to his skin. Seriously, Otabek needs to _get a grip_. So he does that, gets a good firm grip on JJ's ass and _pulls._

The noise that gets him is glorious, and then JJ is flipping them around, back meeting wall with a graceless thunk as he pushes Otabek away to forearm's length. For a while he just _stares_ , taking in all of Otabek in the light. Otabek wishes he'd stop chewing on his own lip. That's _his_ job. He's about to fix that, and is already leaning in, but JJ shakes his head like he's trying to hard reset his brain and reaches down to the plastic bag still somehow around Otabek's wrist. 

'Bed. Now please,' he mumbles, and attaches a hand to Otabek's ass to push him forward. They try to walk like that, and somehow _manage_ , and then the backs of Otabek's knees are hitting JJ's mattress with the ridiculous slippery charcoal sheets and JJ is climbing _over_ him and Otabek is done for as JJ throws the lube bag somewhere pillow-wards and cups Otabek's entire face in his freakishly huge warm hands to kiss him deep and slow and hot. 

When Otabek's hands come back online instead of lying there uselessly above his head, he employs them on the very important task of fumbling with the buttons on JJ's button-up. He actually has to break the kiss to get the required level of concentration, and JJ instead happily goes back to introducing his teeth to Otabek's neck -- he moans, which must reverberate against JJ's teeth because it's _loud_ , and tips his chin up for access even if it means he's working on the buttons unaided by sight. It's a sacrifice for the greater good. 

When he finally manages to push the shirt off JJ's shoulders, he needs an actual Moment. 

A hospital stay has done very little towards making JJ lose his definition, and the soft strong lines of his shoulders make Otabek feel a little faint if he looks at them for too long. It feels, a little, like the art appreciation classes he was forced to take in high school; but art never tried to crawl off a canvas and bite its way down his neck, so he can't really draw a comparison there. 

He took music classes, too, and as a DJ he's well versed in sound, but he doesn't quite know which genre the sounds JJ is making fit into. He does deal more with Youtube than Pornhub, though, so perhaps it's just not his domain. 

In lieu of categorization of JJ's moans by genre, he gets JJ himself sitting back on his thighs, knees on either side of Otabek's hips. He's looking at Otabek like he looks at particularly aesthetic dessert -- a little _I can't wait to eat you_ and a little _shit you're so beautiful like this don't know if I even want to mess you up._ The difference being: JJ doesn’t try to put him on Instagram, and instead busies himself with edging his fingers past the edges of Otabek's clothes to gently but insistently push them off. 

Then they're both shirtless and floppy-haired and panting at each other; Otabek makes very compelling whiny noises until JJ mercifully releases his dick from the denim cage. He thinks he might have zipper imprints, now, but then JJ's hands are _right there_ sliding his jeans past his ass and oh, Otabek thinks. _Zipper imprints would be worth this._

Then he has to struggle to keep his neck up to _watch_ and loses the struggle in about two seconds when JJ peels the sticky-wet boxers off his dick and does what he usually does to aesthetic desserts: gets a _taste_. Otabek's head hits the bed hard and he doesn't think that the thing that leaves his throat is any kind of recognizable human language; he doesn't even have the presence of mind to remember that they forgot a condom. There are two constants in the world: hardness and softness, his dick being the former and JJ's mouth being the latter. 

In the entire process he's somehow been rearranged; his thighs are resting over JJ's to angle his hips up, and JJ's hands are simultaneously running slightly-sharp trails across his thighs and edging his jeans down even further and holding his dick. Otabek doesn't know how all that happens with two hands, but he trusts JJ's expertise. Kind of. 

When JJ pulls off for a second and air rushes back into Otabek's lungs -- in a kind of _hey, I still exist, nice to check back in with you_ \-- he thinks two things: one, undercuts as a hairstyle are fucking great because they combine the benefits of good ventilation with good amounts of pullable hair. Two, JJ wants him to _die_. He doesn't know what he did to deserve such a fate, but JJ is leaning back to gently raise his legs one by one to peel off his jeans, leaving absent-minded little nips as each successive inch of skin is revealed, and Otabek's brain is trying its best not to evaporate through his nose. 

A good deal of it is the overwhelming knowledge that it's _JJ_ , he knows. And also overdramatic metaphors. That too, but then JJ raises his now-bare legs to his shoulders and slides Otabek forward to nose _lower_ , to lick shamelessly in places that are _not Otabek's dick definitely not Otabek's dick_ , and it's so different from Yura's kittenish licks and he shouldn't be thinking of Yura at that precise moment and if someone touches his dick he thinks that's game over for him there and then and he thinks he might rip holes in JJ's fancy silk sheets with how hard he's clenching his fists but then JJ hums and licks in deeper with more slick-warm saliva and Otabek makes a sound between a sob and a mewl. 

Eventually JJ has to ease him down, pushing a pillow under his hips and retrieving the bag of lube, but Otabek barely registers the click of the cap with the forearm thrown across his face. JJ has patted the side of his face on his way down; a quick _you okay?_ Which he could only reply to with _mrrwgrah._

_So sensitive_ , JJ murmurs, trailing fingers down Otabek's chest and watching his abs twitch. Otabek agrees; Otabek also thinks that if JJ doesn’t get something into his ass soon he might start crying. 

Luckily for his stoic image (or whatever's left of it), JJ soon slips a cold-ish but wet and slick finger in. He's studiously avoiding Otabek's prostate; Otabek doesn't know if he should be grateful or annoyed, so he settles for frustrated and impatient. His mind only barely registers that JJ's jeans have joined Otabek's dignity on the floor at some point. One finger becomes two becomes an easy and sloppy three, and Otabek wants to snark about how _that's more than enough_ , but then JJ takes the hint himself and spreads Otabek's thighs a little further. A packet crinkles; JJ drizzles lube like it's sauce over a hotdog about to go between buns -- Otabek's buns, so he isn't complaining. 

When he sinks in, Otabek thinks he finally knows how the ocean feels during shipwrecks. JJ leans forward and lets Otabek wind his arms around his neck; Otabek has far less issues with making out with a mouth that just made out with his ass than originally expected. It's _JJ_. Otabek kisses his noise, aimlessly, and thinks as hard as he can: _move._

JJ must be a telepath, because he _does_. JJ must also be a sadist, or a masochist, or some combination of both, because he moves _so, so slow_ , rocking in at a pace so shallow and slow that Otabek can feel every single minute drag. This wasn’t really what Otabek had in mind when he thought he wanted them to grow old together; but he shudders a little and takes it anyway. JJ is so _close_ , everything is so _close_ and _warm_ and _wet_ and that list includes his dick, which is trapped between JJ's body and his. 

_Movemovemove_ , he says, into JJ's mouth, and then JJ's intent eyes are tracking every twitch on his face as he picks up the pace and curls a hand around Otabek's neglected dick. Otabek wonders for a moment why he's so focused, and then the wonder is overtaken by the overly-bright colors bleeding into white and JJ's teeth hard on his neck as he shudders. Or maybe Otabek is shuddering. It takes him a while to process that -- _both_ ; JJ timed it perfectly so they both came together. Hell of a party trick. JJ slumps over him like a very fucked sack of potatoes (warm, smooth, sweat-slick sack of potatoes, never make sack metaphors ever again). His hair tickles Otabek's jaw and his dick is still in Otabek's ass and his nose must be smushed gracelessly into Otabek's collarbone and his left hand is cupping Otabek's jaw, thumb swiping lazy circles across his cheekbone. It's perfect. 

'Love you,' JJ yawns, and there goes Otabek's heart-boner too. The entire insides of his chest feel like they were coated in warm sticky caramel. 

'Love you too,' he manages. 'But please remove JJ junior from my ass.' 

JJ blinks up at him for a moment, and then _grins_ , and it's such a breathtaking expression that he thinks his lungs might be warm sticky caramel too. 'Mkay,' JJ says, all warm-sleepy-lazy smiles, and Otabek tries to ignore both the empty feeling in his ass and the empty feeling in his chest as JJ walks away to presumably throw the condom away and get a wet towel, stretching lazily on the way. 

His naked ass is _glorious_ to behold, anyway. 

JJ comes back with a still-warm towel and it's so so good on Otabek's damp skin until JJ plops it on the floor beside the bed and Otabek is suddenly _cold._ JJ doesn't make him wait long; he pulls Otabek into him, radiating heat, and pulls the covers over them both. _How are you like this_ , Otabek wants to ask when JJ presses soft kisses into his hair and curls a hand over his heart. _How are you so perfect_. 'M'Love you. A lot,' comes out instead, and he feels more than hears JJ chuckle into his hair. 

'Me too, Bek. Love you lots.' 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helo @muraechi u asked 4 bottombek and u probably wont see this but i tried!! i hope it was decent;;

**Author's Note:**

> gross shit laptop died (hate). took remainder of my jjbek week fics with it (MAJOR hate). fuck u laptop. this fic, however, i had the foresight to save, so enjoy! maybe ill shit out smth new by the end of jjbek week ;-;
> 
>  
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> **  
> [whomst me](http://archiveofourown.org/users/firepixel/profile)  
>  **


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